The founding director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch has resigned.
Scott Long announced that his resignation is related to recent health issues and that he intends to spend his retirement writing and teaching.
Long joined the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in 1996. He then began his work at Human Rights Watch in 2002 and after two years spent investigating Egyptian authorities’ violent responses to gay male sex, decided to launch the LGBT division in 2004. It was one of the first such programs to be involved with a mainstream human rights organisation.
Under Long, the program has worked with others at Human Rights Watch to create awareness of LGBT-specific causes such as homophobic violence in Jamaica and South Africa, discrimination against same-sex bi-national couples in the US and, most recently, militia violence in Iraq against men who do not conform to heteronormative rules.
The LGBT Rights Program will continue to research reports on international sexual rights issues under new leadership.